Purpose :
The purpose of this study was to comparative investigate potential impact of inflammation following myopic correction. The established current gold standard of femtosecond-assisted LASIK was compared to an all femto-second laser Small Incision refractive Lenticule Extraction (SMILE). No study has investigated the potential differences between SMILE and LASIK from the stand-point of postoperative inflammation.

Methods :
This is a contralateral, perspective stud employing 10 consecutive myopic patients, in which one eye (group-A) was treated with the SMILE, while the other eye (group-B) with LASIK. The LASIK procedure employed the Alcon Refractive surgery platform (Alcon Surgical, Ft. Worth, TX) comprised of the FS200 femtosecond and the EX500 excimer laser. The SMILE procedure employed the 500 kHz VisuMax® femtosecond laser (Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, Jena, Germany).InflammaDry (Rapid Pathogen Screening, Inc., Sarasota, FL) is an in-office test that detects matrix metalloproteinase MMP-9, an inflammatory marker that is consistently elevated in the tears of patients with dry eye disease. Using direct sampling microfiltration technology, InflammaDry identifies elevated levels of MMP-9 protein in tear fluid samples taken from the palpebral conjunctiva. Levels of MMP-9 were tested 1-month, 3-months and 6-months postoperatively, facilitated with the use of InflammaDry solution. Inclusion criteria: 18 years of age or older. Exclusion Criteria: Allergy to cornstarch or Darcon, Allergy to topical anesthetic or fluorescein dye.